Experience the true stories behind the history you learned in school in this collection. This book contains dozens of new twists on the dusty old histories you're used to reading about
Includes bibliographical references and index
Eyewitness reports: Eyewitness to Custer's last stand -- Dinner with Attila the Hun -- Watching Gettysburg and other Civil War battles -- Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac -- Human sacrifice at a Viking funeral -- Walt Whitman and President Lincoln's assassination -- Official documents: FBI course in bomb-making -- Naval discipline -- Survival under atomic attack -- Dire warning against the railroads -- Spy reveals how easy it was to steal U.S. secrets -- Alternative views: Geronimo tells his side of the story -- United States tried for war crimes -- Being friendly with the enemy -- Native Americans versus western civilization -- Firsthand accounts by famous people: Wyatt Earp tells of the shoot-out at O.K. Corral -- Red Baron describes being shot down -- Sacking of the White House -- Jack London witnesses the 1906 San Francisco earthquake -- Mark Twain in another San Francisco earthquake -- Charles Dickens witnesses a death by guillotine -- Ignorance and intelligence: Unusual uses for mummies -- Legal prosecutions of animals -- Lost knowledge rediscovered -- Putting their wives up for sale -- Odds and ends: Duels between women -- Dog is elected mayor in California -- Menu for a Roman banquet -- Houdini's secrets -- Victims of history: Prisoner on a slave ship to America -- Letter from the Donner party -- Captured by Indians -- U.S. Army murders Native Americans -- On the Titanic as it sinks -- Inside a Nazi death camp -- Weird literature: Gallows literature -- Some authentic pirate songs -- Bizarre North Korean propaganda -- John Greenleaf Whittier's poem about hash -- George Washington grew marijuana -- Ben Franklin's advice on choosing a mistress -- Mark Twain's speech on masturbation -- Participants in history: Opium dens in America -- Pirate's adventures with Captain Morgan -- Supposed location of Blackbeard's treasure -- I started World War I -- Emperor Nero's mother pleads for her life -- American presidents: Extramarital affairs of the presidents (and a few other indiscretions) -- Another look at some presidents -- Unintelligible quotations of U.S. presidents -- U.S. presidents are not elected by the people -- Strange religion: X-rated Bible -- Mormon polygamy -- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther and the fairy changeling -- Weird saints -- Phallic worship in Japan